French marine park closes, leaving fate of two orcas uncertain | France

A French marine park has been permanently closed due to a 2021 law banning shows featuring marine mammals, leaving an uncertain future for the country’s last two orcas in captivity, hundreds of other animals and dozens of employees.

The park’s closure on Sunday was marked by a final show by its two orcas, Wikie and Keijo, who were greeted with enthusiastic applause by the crowds who had come for its final day of operation.

Attendance has declined sharply in recent years, but many visitors and employees have expressed dismay.

“Our hearts are in pieces,” said Salomé Mathis, a young caretaker who came to say goodbye to her former colleagues at the water park.

The two orcas – also known as killer whales – face an uncertain future themselves.

Animal rights activists have been angered by Marineland’s plan to transfer its two orcas to Japan, a move France’s ecology minister said opposed Tokyo’s more lax animal welfare laws.

The future of the other 4,000 animals belonging to 150 different species, including dolphins, sea lions, turtles and fish, also remains uncertain.

Marineland was hit by a storm of controversy in March after two of its orcas died five months apart.

The park, near Antibes on the French Riviera, has some 4,000 animals of 150 different species. But visitor numbers have fallen from 1.2 million a year at its peak, when it was a star attraction on the French Riviera, to just 425,000 over the past decade.

It employed 103 permanent employees and some 500 seasonal workers.

“I understand that it is ending with the drop in attendance, but I am disappointed because we could have evolved differently,” said Jeremy Lo Vasco, 34, goalkeeper for 10 years.

“For now, we are not thinking about our own fate because our priority is that the animals are doing well, but the hammer blow will come later.”

Vasco speaks of a “snowball effect” due to many factors, including the 2015 floods which submerged the site, the 2013 documentary film Blackfish denouncing cetacean captivity and the Covid pandemic.

These led the owner of the park, the Spanish group Parques Reunidos, to announce its definitive closure, with only recreational activities being maintained during the summer.

The park said 90 percent of its visitors come for its orca and dolphin shows.

The closure of Marineland puts an end to a story that began when Count Roland Paulze d’Ivoy de La Poype – hero of the Second World War – opened the park entirely dedicated to marine fauna based on what he had seen in the United States.

Marineland has until December 2026 to dispose of its two remaining orcas.

The priority is to “relocate all animals to the best facilities currently available,” the park said.